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Richard Guth * 1884

ohne Hamburger Adresse

ermordet am 23.9.1940 in der Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg an der Havel

further stumbling stones in ohne Hamburger Adresse :
Dr. Hans Bloch, Felix Cohn, Moraka Farbstein, Erland Walter Friedmann, Martha Havelland, Albert Hirsch, Auguste Hirschkowitz, Sophie Kasarnowsky, Ernestine Levy, Richard Levy, Hannchen Lewin, Bronislawa Luise Dorothea Mattersdorf, Karl Friedrich Michael, Lucie Rothschild, Dorothea Dorthy Silberberg, Wilhelm Süsser, Anna Luise (Louise Hedwig) Weimann, Salo Weinberg

Richard Guth, born on 9 Sept. 1884 in Vienna, murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel euthanasia killing center

Without Stolperstein

Richard Guth was born on 9 Sept. 1884 in Vienna as the son of Jewish parents. Already since 5 July 1899, i.e., since the age of 15, he lived in Hamburg in what was then the Alsterdorf Asylum (Alsterdorfer Anstalten). In the admission book of this institution, his parents are listed as the "agent” Bernhard Guth and Clotilde, née Bachrich, Vienna II, Förstergasse 7. The birth entry of the Viennese Jewish Community describes his father as an amber manufacturer. We do not know why Richard Guth took up residence in Hamburg. His parents do not seem to have lived in this city; at least the Hamburg directory does not contain any corresponding reference. They must have been doing well economically, because Richard Guth was on file as a private patient in Alsterdorf.

After 1933, the Alsterdorf Asylum developed into a Nazi model operation where eugenics ideas were supported and, associated with them, forced sterilization as "prevention of unworthy life” ("Verhütung unwerten Lebens”). It was only a matter of time before the persecution of the Jews in the German Reich also led to corresponding measures at the Alsterdorf Asylum. A ruling by the Reich Audit Office (Reichsfinanzhof) of 18 Mar. 1937 served as a pretext for preparing the discharge of all Jews from the Alsterdorf Asylum. Pastor Friedrich Karl Lensch, the director of the Alsterdorf Asylum, deduced from the verdict the danger of the loss of non-profit status under tax law if Jews continued to stay in the institution. A letter dated 3 Sept. 1937 to the Hamburg Welfare Authority contained 18 names of "Jewish charges who are accommodated here at the expense of the welfare authority,” including that of Richard Guth. Apparently, he had lost his status as a private patient in the meantime. He was one of the last Jewish patients to be discharged from Alsterdorf on 24 Jan. 1939 and transferred to the Hamburg-Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” (Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Hamburg-Langenhorn).

From Langenhorn, Richard Guth was taken to the Düssin Estate in West Mecklenburg on 28 Aug. 1939. The City of Hamburg had bought the estate at the end of 1938 in order to set up an institution for persons with mental disabilities or mental illness to ease pressure on the Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home.” The Düssin Estate initially accommodated 220 persons from Langenhorn who had to perform farm work there. Among them were, in addition to Richard Guth, another six women and men of Jewish descent. Richard Guths deployment in Düssin ended on 30 Aug. 1940 with his readmission in Langenhorn.

Whether this change of location was already connected to an operation across the Reich initiated by the planning and administration center for the Nazi patient murders located at Berlin’s Tiergartenstrasse 4 (T4) and the Reich Ministry of the Interior in Apr. 1940 cannot be clarified. As part of this operation, all Jewish patients were first recorded in sanatoriums and nursing homes in the German Reich and in the so-called Ostmark (Austria), then assembled in so-called collection facilities and subsequently murdered with carbon monoxide in several killing facilities. The Hamburg-Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt” Hamburg-Langenhorn) was designated the North German collection institution. All institutions in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Mecklenburg were ordered to move the Jews living in their facilities there by 18 Sept. 1940.

On 23 Sept. 1940, Richard Guth and 135 other patients from North German institutions were transported to Brandenburg/Havel. The transport reached the city in the Mark (March) on the same day. In the part of the former penitentiary converted into a gas-killing facility, the patients were immediately driven into gas chambers and killed with carbon monoxide. Only Ilse Herta Zachmann escaped this fate at first (see corresponding entry).

We do not know whether and, if so, when relatives became aware of Richard Guths death. In all documented death notices, it was claimed that the person concerned had died in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German). Those murdered in Brandenburg, however, were never in Chelm/Cholm, a town east of Lublin. The former Polish sanatorium there no longer existed after SS units had murdered almost all patients on 12 Jan. 1940. Also, there was no German records office in Chelm. Its fabrication and the use of postdated dates of death served to disguise the killing operation and at the same time enabled the authorities to claim higher care expenses for periods extended accordingly.

No personal address in Hamburg could be established for Richard Guth, so that no individual place can be determined where he could be commemorated with a Stolperstein.

Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; 9; StaH 133-1 III Staatsarchiv III, 3171-2/4 U.A. 4, Liste psychisch kranker jüdischer Patientinnen und Patienten der psychiatrischen Anstalt Langenhorn, die aufgrund nationalsozialistischer "Euthanasie"-Maßnahmen ermordet wurden, zusammengestellt von Peter von Rönn, Hamburg (Projektgruppe zur Erforschung des Schicksals psychisch Kranker in Langenhorn); 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26. 8. 1939 bis 27. 1. 1941; 371-19_2001 (Düssin) (2); Evang. Stiftung Alsterdorf, Archiv, Aufnahmebuch; Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (IKG) Wien, Matrikenamt, A / VIE / IKG / I / BUCH / MA / Geburtsbuch / 36.
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